Women of the Northern Plains : gender and settlement on the homestead frontier, 1870-1930 by
In Women of the Northern Plains, Barbara Handy-Marchello tells the stories of the unsung heroes of North Dakota's settlement era: the farm women. As the men struggled to raise and sell wheat, the women focused on barnyard labor--raising chickens and cows and selling eggs and butter--to feed and clothe their families and maintain their households through booms and busts. Handy-Marchello focuses on the roles of women in this pioneer generation--their changing status from equal partnership to subordination, from being valued for their productive work to being glorified for their reproductive function. Enlivened by interviews with pioneer families as well as diaries, memoirs, and other primary sources, Women of the Northern Plains uncovers the significant and changing roles of Dakota farm women who were true partners to their husbands, their efforts marking the difference between success and failure for their families.
Regeneration through violence : the mythology of the American frontier, 1600-1860 by
In Regeneration Through Violence, the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, Richard Slotkin shows how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace the Native Americans. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries-including captivity narratives, the Daniel Boone tales, and the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville-Slotkin traces the full development of this myth.
Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America by
"Gunfighter Nation completes Richard Slotkin's trilogy, begun in Regeneration Through Violence and continued in Fatal Environment, on the myth of the American frontier. Slotkin examines an impressive array of sources -- fiction, Hollywood westerns, and the writings of Hollywood figures and Washington leaders -- to show how the racialist theory of Anglo-Saxon ascendance and superiority (embodied in Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West), rather than Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis of the closing of the frontier, exerted the most influence in popular culture and government policy making in the twentieth century. He argues that Roosevelt's view of the frontier myth provided the justification for most of America's expansionist policies, from Roosevelt's own Rough Riders to Kennedy's counterinsurgency and Johnson's war in Vietnam." --Amazon
Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1929-1929 by
In Passage to Union, the author has written a richly informed narrative history of the growth of the railroads, an American icon. But her conclusions are surprising. Where the railroads and their entrepreneurs are ordinarily celebrated for their accomplishments, Ms. Gordon finds that the cost of their achievements was high.
The American frontier by
Foreword -- Introduction -- Opening of the West -- Lewis and Clark's journey across the continent / Gerald F. Kreyche ; Significance of the Lewis and Clark expedition / National Park Service ; East of the Mississippi : the agricultural frontier / Thomas D. Clark ; Opening of Texas and the Santa Fe Trail / Dale Van Every ; Mountain men : the importance of the fur trade in the opening of the West / William H. Goetzmann -- Destiny and war -- Manifest destiny : Americans embrace expansionism / Ray Allen Billington ; War with Mexico / Don Nardo ; Manifest destiny as a turning point in U.S.-Indian policy / Reginald Horsman ; Manifest destiny--or genocide? / W. Eugene Hollon -- Gold fever -- California Gold Rush and the American dream / Malcolm J. Rohrbough ; Veritable revolution : the economic significance of the California Gold Rush / Gerald D. Nash ; Gold Rush as melting pot / Walter Nugent ; Colorado Gold Rush and the reimagining of America / Elliot West -- Transcontinental Railroad -- Transcontinental Railroad and the development of the West / Leonard J. Arrington ; Destruction of the buffalo and the opening of the cattle driving frontier / Richard White ; Rise and fall of the cattle kingdoms / T. Harry Williams, Richard N. Current & Frank Freidel ; Closing of the American frontier / John F. Stover -- Epilogue : Frontier thesis in modern American history -- America's frontier heritage / Ray Allen Billington
The Lonesome Plains by
rave cheers but many tears : departure -- Over the threshold : all things new -- Fearful solitude -- Such a country as this : loneliness -- The insecurity of life : sickness and accidents -- Death's visitation -- Neglected and forgotten : lonely graves in lonely places -- The sounds of entombment -- Meeting time -- Camp meetings--half-vacation -- Camp meetings--half-revival -- Fellowship of the lonely
Window on the West: Chicago and the Art of the New Frontier, 1890-1940 by
"With the landmark World's Columbian Exposition, held in 1893, Chicago established its identity as a 'Window on the West': an economic and cultural hub linking the traditions of the East with the resources of the West after the offical 'closure' of the frontier declared that year by Frederick Jackson Turner. During the period 1890-1940, Chicago experienced tremendous population growth, pioneered numerous technological advances, and contributed to the development of artistic modernism. Chicago artists looked back at an imagined, idyllic past and romantic Indian heroes, and forward to an equally utopian future in which American culture would rediscover its soul through contact with 'authentic' native peoples and artistic expressions. A number of important patrons supported these artists in their quest to depict the West and Southwest. Individuals as diverse as railway entrepreneur Edward E. Ayer; five-term mayor Carter H. Harrison, Jr.; real estate mogul and politician George F. Harding; and progressively inclined Art Institute director Daniel Catton Rich shared a desire for uniquely American art, fostered in Chicago and featuring motifs found in the West and Southwest. The art they commissioned and collected took many forms, as seen in this publication, which accompanied an exhibition delivered largely from the Art Institute's permanent collections and from local public and private collections. The broad array of media and styles presented here range from the naturalistic sculpture of Frederic Remington and Hermon Atkins MacNeil, through the colorful Taos paintings of Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins, to the modernist abstractions of Georgia O'Keeffe. This publication provides a focused social and cultural history of the role played by Chicago artists and patrons in the evolution of a visual language for depicting the landscape and people of the American West. These works of art both reflected and influence the nation's perspective on its land, people, and history"--Publisher's description.
Manifest Destinies by
A sweeping history of the 1840s that captures America's enormous sense of possibility and shows how the extraordinary expansion of territories forced the nation to come to grips with the deep rift that would bring war just a decade later.
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